At present, cable television networks are broadcast over satellite communications. A cable network, such as Cable News Network (CNN), will provide programming, cable network commercials and air time cued by a preceding signal during which the local cable service providers are allowed to insert their own commercial spots. The cable network signal, including the cue tone, is transmitted to the local cable service providers via satellite by transmitting the cable network signal up to a satellite transponder that then transmits the signal back down to the earth's surface over a downlink. The downlink covers a large geographic area. There are usually many local cable service providers in the geographic area of the downlink.
The local cable television service providers receive the signal from the satellite transponder over the downlink. Each of these cable service providers is usually referred to as a cable "headend". In the usual situation a plurality of cable headends are grouped geographically for advertising purposes, and such groupings have become known as Designated Market Areas or DMA's.
Each of these cable headends receives a number of cable network signals such as CNN, the Music Television Channel (MTV), the Sports Network (ESPN) and many others, usually through the use of multiple dedicated satellite dishes. The time made available for insertion of messages may be referred to as "breaks". These breaks need not be used in their entirety. The time used may be referred to as an "avail", and this terminology is adopted for use herein. These "avails" may occur during the networks' commercial "breaks" at a time when a particular network may be running its own commercials capable of being electronically preempted by the insertions, or the network may leave blank air time for the insertions. Typical "avails" are for 30 seconds and there may be two or more "avails" within a "break" which may be of 1 or 2 minutes in duration.
In order to insert advertising into a network cued "break", cable headend operators have employed automation equipment that controls video tape players and positions the "local" spot advertisement(s) or other messages for playback and insertion when cued at the proper time. However, the local headend operator may not be able to fill the entire "break" with economically desirable advertising. Thus a market is created for the headend operator to sell additional, more economically desirable advertising to be inserted. An example of this is a national company's advertisement that is targeted for only regional or semi-regional distribution (e.g. what McDonald's may wish to advertise in New York City, it may not wish to advertise in Dallas, Tex.). The "region" to be targeted may often consist of a group of cooperative cable companies who happen to be in a designated marketing area (DMA) or a zone within a DMA.
An advertiser today who wishes to advertise regionally or semi-regionally using the present, most prevalent technology must contact each local cable service headend or a designated advertising representative for a group of headends, arrange for each headend to have a taped copy of the ad, and then maker contact with each headend to show the commercial during a desired series of avails over a desired selection of cable channels. This arrangement has been very difficult to establish, coordinate and operate. A national or regional advertiser seeking to reach a target audience in a particular DMA or zone within a DMA will often not undertake the task of entering into such cumbersome arrangements with so many parties. National advertisers have therefore sought out simpler arrangements made directly with network television broadcasters such as NBC, ABC and CBS, or with the cable networks that cover the entire country and are priced accordingly. Both the national advertiser and individual headend operator, in short, suffer due to the inadequacies of the most prevalent technology extant.
A number of attempts in the prior art with non-real time approaches have provided a less than complete solution to the above-described problem. For example:
One known attempt at a solution, called "ADLINK", includes a system for sending to the headend operator in a DMA, from a remote central site, commercial messages over a special satellite transponder in an hour-long stream at off-hours (e.g. nighttime). The headend operators record this stream of commercials on a video tape recorder located at each headend for playback during on-hours "avails" of their choosing (e.g. daytime). This system requires all the tape recorders at all headends to operate reliably over relatively long periods of time. The national advertisers have demonstrated that they do not have confidence that their spots, in fact, are always run by each headend operator in this type of system. In addition, if even one or only a few headends fail in a targeted DMA, monitoring of the lost ad is complex and, when disclosed, it is not always practical to run the ad again free, as there may well be the same or a different headend(s) not working every night. This approach has also been offered by "AdStar" (a/k/a "NuStar" and "Starnet") with more reliable local digital video storage systems replacing the unreliable tape recorders. This newer offering, however, is expensive and requires a large investment by the cable headend operators. Even if these systems work perfectly, with no loss of commercial, affidavits of performance must still be sent by each headend to the sending source for verification. The paperwork entailed in such a process is cumbersome, expensive, and often creates payment delays.
Another known system which seeks to solve the above problem, uses a single satellite transponder to send a series of promotional messages. These messages may be inserted into the local cable headends programming whenever an "avail" occurs within a "break". Since, however, there is only one message stream and it has to serve all headends all the time, it is not sent in step with the timing of the breaks. Gaps thus inherently occur, except in an unusual or coincidental circumstance. To accomplish its purpose, then, each "avail" is conceived of as being broken up into a continuous stream of ten second messages, so that insertion can occur with some continuity. A third filler message is used to help in the 0-10 second transition period. This approach is known as the "Multivail" system and is detailed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,814,883. It is useful for cable network promotion, but has been shown not to be useful for a regional advertiser that needs full length spots and needs to select specific targeted DMA's.
Another known system used as an insertion approach recognizes that all cable networks do not run commercial breaks at the same time. This automated approach located at each headend uses a computer programmed to draw upon a pool of headend tape players as needed to complete the insertion. The video tapes contain many commercials which are laid down in a special format. Each tape player is positioned by the computer to start at the format location of the next desired commercial. This concept is known as the "ARVIS" system and is detailed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,724,491. A known extension of this approach calls for commercials to be sent over a fiber optic link by the headend operator with the computerized video tape bank, to an adjacent cable operator for insertion in its programming in order to widen the audience for the local advertising. This concept has been used, for example, in Indianapolis by two cable operators wishing to connect their systems together just for the brief duration of the commercial breaks.
In view of the above, it is apparent that there exists a need in the art for both an apparatus and method which may be used efficiently and economically to insert and verify the insertion of commercials, or other messages, into slots cued by cable networks during their programming for insertion of messages from another source, particularly where it is desirable to use at least a portion of the available time for regional advertising in a plurality of designated market areas, or zones within these DMA's.